Czupryna

It's possible that not only Poles, but also other Slavs worn a halfshaven head. British franscescan Bartholomeus Anglicus in year 1235 wrote in his encyclopedia, that mostly all the Slavs, except Ruthenians and Slavs mixed with Germans and Latins, shave their heads.[7] Bartholomeus, who lived in Magdeburg from several years know good the Slavic lands.[8] By "Slavic lands" he meant the area from Saxonia to Ruthenia and from Dalmatia, Carinthia and Serbia to the Baltic Sea. About shaven heads, and dislike to beards, wrote also Saxo Grammaticus when writing about the temple of Arcona.[9] He wrote that according to the common custom, only priests could grow long hair and beards.[10] In a Saxon manifesto against Slavic pagans from year 1108 is mentioned that Slavs simulated Saxons during the attack by wearing their scalps[11] - Saxons grew long hair,[12] so Polabian haircut had to be very different: very short. So, the custom of shaving hair, in 13th century recognised as Polish, has to have bigger dimensions. The existence of czupryna amongst the Polabian Slav territories is obviously testified by many archaeological discoveries. Are for example: little bronze statue for Schwedt/Oder (X-11th century),[13][14] Altfriesack Götze, a wooden statue from Altfriesack (6th-7th century),[15] sitting statue from Gatschow near Demmin (XI-12th century),[16] a little sculpture from Merserburg near Leipzig (10th century).[17] All the figures have short hair and halfshaven heads. There are also a metal fitting from museum in Oldburg and a wooden statue from Wolin (10th century). Because of the corrosion, it is difficult to say if heads are shaven, but the hair are surely short.[18][19] The most clear proof are the Sachsenspiegel illustrations - all Wends on the illustrations (in contrast with long-haired Saxons) have a short haircut, shaved at the ear-height.

In old Croatian tombs razors are often found too, but the problem about dimensions of halfshaven head custom in other Slavic lands than Poland is still not investigated.[20] Another, but similar custom, is the so-called перчин / perčin (in Serbo-Croatian) or чумбас / чембас (in Bulgarian). It's a haircut that consist in shaving head from below, like in czupryna, but with leaving an braid of hair or something like Ukrainian chub. This haircut probably arrived from Asia with Proto-Bulgars: for the first time, "shaven heads" were mentioned in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans. It was worn by South Slavs still in the 19th century.[21][22][23][24]

Svyatoslav I of Kiev with chub and in vyshyvanka (19th century rendering)

The halfshaven haircut was also worn by the Cossacks of the Ukraine from the 15th to the 21st century. Known as a Chupryna or Oseledets due to its resemblance to a herring, it featured a long strip of hair on the top of an otherwise shaven head. Russians commonly use the word khokhol (Russian: хохо́л), meaning forelock, as an ethnic slur for Ukrainians. The term is frequently derogatory or condescending, an equivalent of the Ukrainian term katsap (Ukrainian: кацап) and Polish kacap for Russians.[25][26]